saablog

I think that Ani is getting more excited about the 900. On Saturday night, we met some friends downtown for dinner and a comedy show, and we went on our "date" in the 900. It was fairly clean, and the last segment of stripe had just been installed on the trunk. She was impressed by the fact that I could shift the car without ever grinding the gears, which wasn't the case the first time she rode in the car with me.

Then on Monday I removed the driver's seat from the 900, so I could stitch up the leather. After pulling the chair out of the car, I removed the seat bottom upholstery from the seat and it's mounting frame. Well, my investment of about $3.50 in needles and upholstery thread was a waste, because I never learned how to sew. I figured I'd have to take it to the upholstery people and pay the $120 or so I'd been quoted for the repair. But Ani suggested taking the upholstery into the shoe/purse repair place she has used in Edmonds; they had fixed her un-stitched purse for like $4. So while I was in Portland yesterday, she took the upholstery to this repair shop. They said they could fix it. The cost they quoted: "Nine or ten dollars." Awesome. Thank you Ani for saving me over $100!

We'll see how the repair looks when we pick it up on Saturday. I've got to re-assemble the seat so our friends who are coming from Portland this weekend to celebrate Luisa's first birthday can have rides in the orange stripe!

Hello avid Saablog followers! Erik borrowed the 900 over the weekend and lent a big hand on some upgrades. Here is his perspective on 3 days with the 900 (in blue text) with my responses/comments in bold black text. You can click on the photos to see bigger views. Enjoy- KRM

How was I supposed to know that borrowing a car would be so much work? But I guess there is no such thing as a free ride...

You've no doubt read about the stripe install (which would not have happened without my urging and labor). That was not too bad a project, and definitely helped out the appearance of the racer. I hope that The Owner will post a picture of the side window decal, which reads "KRM Race Team." He is sort of iffy on it, and maybe some feedback will help out with the "yea" or "nay" decision from The Owner. I was actually thinking of different wordings for the decal, such as "...autosports", "...motorsports" and maybe "kr900..." or even "Uncle E..." but I digress. I'm looking for all of you readers to leave comments as to whether the KRM Race Team logo is "cool", or a little tacky... please!

So after leaving the KRM Race Team world headquarters in Shoreline, I ran some errands (quickly, since I was moving at near the speed of sound with the stripes on the car!). Later in the afternoon I washed and waxed (2 coats!!) Man does that car look sweet! Especially on the driver's side, which has no bondo or bad re-paint. We'll see if he puts the last two feet on when they arrive (we were a little short, due to my poor estimation of the overall lenth of stripe material we needed.) Nicely done on the wax, I really appreciate it!

Saturday afternoon The Owner came back over to Kennydale to spend time with his beloved Saab. I goaded him into starting the project of removing the A/C compressor. (I told him I was going to do it for him, but he forbade me from doing any work while he was not there.)

For a car that has a lot of spare room in the engine compartment, the Saab engineers did an excellent job of hiding most of the bolts necessary to perform any sort of maintenance. Also, to remove two of the bolts holding the AC compressor mounting bracket, we needed an uncommon and different tool. Not a metric spanner (wrench) nor a Saab-common Torx driver, but a hex wrench! Well played, Saab engineers! Fortunately we were able to convince the hex-drive bolts out with a Torx driver. Unfortunately, we lost another Torx driver down into the abyss of the grimy engine bay. After struggling for another 30+ minutes with the remaining 12mm bolt holding the bottom mount of the AC compressor (no way to get a wrench on it), the AC compressor was free!! Finally, we had shed all the unnecessary weight and were stripping the Saab to its bare, racing essentials! The weight of the compressor: maybe 5 pounds. Awesome.

But the job was still only half done. We had the compressor out, but we still needed to remove the coolant lines that were connected to the evaporater and condenser. At the top end this was not a problem. Since the AC system appeared to be one of the last systems added to the car, these connections were on top, and easy to access. It was sort of a standard pipe-connection fitting, with a sleve and a bolt over the top to hold the ends together. The top came apart easily.

By this time in the process, the light was failing and so we had to move the whole operation into the garage for improved working condidtions. of course The Owner didn't want to start the car up, because we were still missing the Torx driver and who know what could happen if we started the car up with that thing down in there! So we pushed it into the garage and got to work on the bottom end connection of the coolant line to the condenser. Well wouldn't you know it, but there was no good way to get a wrench on the thing. and the threads were pretty much frozen. and by trying to put pressure on the nut, we were actually bending the aluminum connection to the condenser. But The Owner wouldn't have to deal with any of this, because HE LEFT!!! And before he left said something like, "Hey brother, I'm sorry but I have to go, you know, the wifey has to get home and I can't stay, but make sure that I can drive it home tomorrow..." Yeah, I'm sure I said something like that.

Awesome.

So dad and I were out there trying anything that resembled a wrench, spanner, pliers or hacksaw (almost) to get the thing undone. Finally, after some WD-40 we loosened it a quarter turn. We had been able to get a wrench on it because the connection had bent enough to give us some room. The position of the connection allowed us to maybe turn the nut one-sixteenth of a rotation at a time, so finally I grabbed it with my hands and wrestled with it for about 15 minutes, and got it off. Finally!! So we should be done now, right? Wrong. We got the nut undone, but the connection inside was corroded, and did not want to come off. We pulled, pushed pried and pounded on it, trying progressively bigger and bigger bars and hammers.

After another 20 minutes, (and some foul language) success!! Maybe he'll show a photo of the parts removed...

Really, he should just take out the whole condenser. I really should, as it's now loose due to the torque exerted on it while you attempted to loosen the fitting. But I know that won't happen anytime soon, since I won't be home again until late summer, and I'd rather put in new suspension and air filter, since that that would actually help performance. (also, I'd like to have a go at replacing the faulty synchro in the tranny, but he probably wouldn't let me get near that).

Oh, BTW, I found the lost Torx driver down in the oily soil on some cross-member. I was willing to let it go, since I knew it wasn't in the belts and wouldn't cause a total system failure, but a glint of bright caught my eye...

Boy, I can't wait to get back behind the wheel!!

You may recall from reading earlier blog postings that my brother bought me stripes for the 900 for our birthday. I received them in the mail a few weeks after the birthday, but never put them on because I didn’t know how, and I wanted to not be in trouble with my brother if I messed them up since he'd bought them..

Erik and Katie flew in to town last night, and this morning our mom dropped him off at 7:15 this morning to pick up the 900, which he’ll drive this weekend while they’re in town. He was pretty disappointed that the stripes weren’t on the car. He insisted we get started with their installation immediately.

The first step is to clean the paint with glass cleaner or Formula 409, to clean any residues or waxes off of the paint. Then you just have to line up the stripes, then peel off the backing slowly while smoothing the stripes onto the car. After the stripes are adhered to the car, just peel off the backing and you’re done. Simple, right?

We started striping on the hood, since that is where we presumed it would be the most difficult to locate the stripe properly due to the contours of the bodywork. We placed it 5.5 inches offset from the centerline of the car, which was easy to find on the hood due to a slight crease in the hood’s center.

 

You can open a little bit bigger view of the photo by clicking on it.

The ends are tricky to stick on properly, but we did pretty good. We next worked our way back on the roof, first with the section between the windshield and sunroof, then the sunroof, then the roof behind the sunroof. It took until about 9:30, so a couple of hours. We ran out of stripe after doing the roof, so we didn’t finish by running the stripe down the back hatch yet. Erik ordered more stripe so the stripe can be complete.

Below is a comparison of Erik's graphic representation in March, compared to the final product! I'll bet you can't wait to see it in person!

When I returned home from Portland and went to move the 900 out of the garage, I found one of the horn buttons from the steering wheel on the floor of the car. It had actually fallen off on Saturday at practice, and I’d replaced it. Obviously I didn’t do a very good job. When the button is missing, there’s an exposed copper horn contact, which to me looks like an electrical safety hazard.

 

Upon closer inspection, I saw that the button is designed with four clip-type tabs on its backside, and two of the clips were not in place. They were still in position on the steering wheel. Of the two remaining tabs, one was cracked and half-way falling off. Now I know why I’ve seen horn buttons for sale on Saab parts sites. I decided it was time for some heavy-duty glue.

 

I got some Elmer’s brand gorilla-style glue, and glued the three tabs back on. After a few hours curing time, the button went back just as it’s supposed to; an easy fix. We’ll see how long it lasts.

I'm thinking that readership has dropped lately, as I'm not getting as many comments here at the Saablog as I used to. No worries.

This morning I visited The Saab Network's Classic 900 bulletin boards to see what's new in the world of older Saabs, and found a link to another guy who is fixing up a Saab. He's fixing a '91 9000 turbo, his project is a lot more intense than mine. You can check him out here. His blog is a lot more polished looking than mine.

If you're visiting the Saablog only infrequently, remember to read down so can ensure you've read all of the posts, thereby ensuring you haven't missed any of the fun.

I finally made it to autocross practice with the Falken Azenis tires. They really transform the car. My friend Zane drove the 900 at practice too, and on my 6th (last) run I was able to approach his best time in the car, though it wasn't a clean run. I rode along with Zane on all but one of his runs. On the one I didn't I was able to see just how severely the car leans in corners. I see new shocks in the future.

After the 12 runs that Zane and I made, I parked the car. I by the time I walked around to the passenger side, a puddle of fluid had already formed below the right-side mudflap, generally below the power steering reservoir. I suspected the power steering as soon as I saw the puddle's location, and when I opened the hood I saw that's indeed where the fluid came from. Power steering fluid had escaped from the vent hole in the reservoir cap, and leaked all over the inside of the fenderwell.

After the last run run we made, the mileage on the car was 111,991. Exactly 1000 miles since I bought the car in January. It turned 112,000 miles on the way home. After 1000 miles, I'm happy with my choice and glad I've got the 900. I'm excited about competing in the autocross season which starts in a few weeks.

On Thursday Erik and Katie are coming to town for the weekend, and will borrow the 900 to get around town. He's looking forward to it and we're looking forward to seeing them.

One of the features of the $800 Saab is a driver's seat whose upholstery is in poor condition. The stitching has come out of the seatbottom cushion upholstery, meaning that there is a big flap of loose leather under my ass, shaped like a big tongue. Or something.

Yet another crappy photo on http://saablog.blog.com. Notice how the shadows and harsh sunlight combine to make the seat details difficult to see.

The upholstery generally stays in place, except if I get in and out of the car very much, which causes it to bunch up where the bottom cushion meets the seat-back. I finally went to an auto upholstery place today at lunch time, they estimated $130 to repair the seat. I've emailed another upholstery shop for an estimate. I really don't want to pay that much, but I want the seat fixed. Do any of you have skills for sewing leather? The holes are there, just the thread is gone.

I replaced the driver's seat bottom upholstery in my '95 900 after sitting in the car with a screwdriver sticking out of my back pocket (cloth, not leather, but the same idea). I removed the seat from the car, and removed the upholstery from the seat. It was all pretty straightforward. So I think I could get the seat out of the '92 without problem and even get the upholstery pieces off of the seat frame in one piece. The only question is whether I could sew the leather up decently enough.